Machines Shall Rule (Robot Nation Game)

Winning Options

Expansion
-Moderated

Warp Access
-In-universe controversy between those in favor of Thorough Audits and those in favor of Total Security, leading to somewhat disjointed policy

Cultural Aspects
-Blunt, Generous, and Guardians win, with Artistic as a close runner-up, spawning a new sub-culture.

Tech Picks
-Basic Megastructures
-Basic Nanites
-Communications

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The matter of expansion policy is very quickly settled. There won't be unrestricted colonization to every system in reach, but by the same metric, the pace of expansion will not be overly stifled either. Instead, there will be a continuously expanding 'Zone of Legal Colonization' centered on Sol, starting at 6 light years of distance, and expanding at two times the speed of light afterwards. This is generally agreed upon as not stifling access to new systems, while also allowing for sufficient consolidation to avoid any particular frontier-related issues that might otherwise crop up.

That said, the matter of who would have access to warp drives to do the colonizing was much more divisive; if a warp ship were to ram an inhabited object it would cause immense devastation, so obviously some form of security is required. The points of contention more have to do with whether private groups should be able to have access to warp ships, and with what level of sureness as to the reliability of the pilots should things be engineered. In the end, a compromise is arrived at; only those engineered for incorruptibility shall be allowed to be pilots, but private organizations will be allowed to hire said pilots. This will be enforced by locks on the control programs for each warpship which only respond to a key-code built into the structure of each pilot.

Aside from these matters, there have been several significant cultural developments. The cultural pain and trauma from the Missionaries has flared even stronger than it had before, but this time instead of turning into depressed sadness, it has become a deep, determined resolve. The Missionaries may have been the death of the humans, but you are determined not to let a similar fate befall anyone who you can possibly save. Soon, the Terran Stellar Republic has a new motto: Never Again Shall The Innocent Be Extinguished.

Around this same time, a great cultural weight is put on honesty and getting straight to the point of whatever statement you're trying to make, rather than wasting time with half-truths and small talk. This attitude has several benefits overall, but it does significantly increase the tension between Memorialists and the Church of the Reborn, as the hardliner Memorialists now have far fewer compunctions about telling the faithful that they think the Church is a sham/ collective delusion.

The last of these major cultural shifts has to do with Altruism, and the fact that it has become a lot more popular, especially when undertaken in an organized manner. Though there are still those in the Republic who are poor and downtrodden, they now have far greater odds of getting help to escape the poverty trap, greatly improving the overall lot in life of the average Newman.

There are also significant examples of technological progress during this period, one of the most prominent being newfound construction techniques allowing the construction of habitats, space stations, and starships thousands of kilometers in length. This advance is also accompanied by newfound aptitude with nanotechnology, allowing Newmen and their creations to heal without a dedicated maintenance crew, greatly increasing the ability of each Newman to handle hostile environments.

Lastly, a means to transmit messages instantly across interstellar distances has been invented in the form of the Quantum Disentanglement Communicator. Though the number of bits the device can send is highly limited, and new QDC units must be constantly shipped between all connected terminals, this greatly improves the Republic's ability to co-ordinate across star systems, as they no longer have to rely entirely upon ships carrying mail.

Still, yet another major event rocks the Republic, sparked by a debate between a hardliner Memorialist and an Awoken Soul from the Church of the Reborn named Lucy Emerald in the Tau Ceti system. Sending out a massive call to the rest of the Church through the QDC network courtesy of a crowdfunding campaign, Lucy and several billion other faithful set out upon a pilgrimage rimward to create, as she put it "A true home for all those who believe the truth of rebirth." with the high concentrations of faithful soon declaring independence on the fiftieth anniversary of the development of Warp Travel.

This of course was a massive headache for the leadership, as it lead to the question of if the religious pilgrims should be allowed to cecede, granted limited autonomy as long as they nominally stayed part of the Republic, or if a war should be declared to bring the Church back into line. Choose wisely.

What to do with the Holy Stars of Rebirth?
[] Allow the Holy Stars of Rebirth to cecede.
[] Try to strike a compromise.
[] Declare war to bring the Church under control.

Overall Expansion Direction
This simply determines who you contact first. No, you don't get to know who's in each direction ahead of time.
[] Spinwards
[] Counterspinwards
[] Corewards

Tech Picks (pick 3)
More SCIENCE! research will be much slower once the pre-game is over.
[] Improved Nuclear Fusion: While practical fusion devices had been in use prior to the Missionary invasion, the Missionaries had reactors and torch engines an order of magnitude better than what humanity could muster by every metric. You have managed to fully recreate this level of performance, and even improve on it.
[] Bio-Genesis: It is now possible to create new biological lifeforms from scratch without pre-existing lifeforms to modify. This could even allow the humans to be re-created, though they really wouldn't be the same people who gave you life.
[] Comm Holes: Further developments based on the QDC allowed for the production of traversable wormholes the size of a pinhead. These wormholes were still small, but they were perfect for interstellar data transmission, lacking th major weakness of QDCs.
[] Ship Design: Much was learned from studying the Missionary's ship. Putting these lessons to use when designing our own space vessels in future will greatly aid us when it comes to making our ships more durable, faster, and overall better.
[] Improved Laser Weapons: Optimal for long-range space combat, you have improved the output of your typical X-Ray lasers, enabling you to severely put the hurt on your enemies in space combat.
[] Shielding: One of the things that gave you the most trouble taking down the Missionary mothership was its defensive shield, composed of a layer of low-temperature plasma confined with an intense electromagnetic field which could quite handily block most of your weaponry. You have replicated this technology.
[] Warp Interdiction: It has been discovered that sufficiently intense gravity waves can disrupt the functioning of a warp drive and force the offending ship to drop to sublight speeds. Even better, by alternating between attraction and repulsion, the overall movement of nearby objects can remain mostly unaffected.
Further techs locked due to not having pre-requisites researched.